The Evolution of Security Inks for Pharmaceutical and Medical Packaging

Nick Cooper

 Luminescence
The Fairway, CM18 6NG, Harlow, Essex, United Kingdom
Tel: +44 1279 456 400 Fax: +44 1279 421 142

Biography

Nick Cooper graduated from the University of Essex in 1992 and, after some post-graduate work, joined Luminescence in 1994. His responsibilities have covered marketing (including the introduction of a new corporate image and branding) and the establishment of international sales in over 100 countries. He was made a director of Luminescence in 1997.

Company Profile

As a specialist manufacturer of security inks for over 20 years, Luminescence have been involved in the development of many features currently used for the protection of pharmaceutical and medical packaging.

Abstract

As a specialist manufacturer of security inks for over 20 years, LUMINESCENCE have been involved in the development of many features currently used for the protection of pharmaceutical and medical packaging.

My presentation will focus on the way that security inks have been developed to protect pharmaceutical and medical packaging from counterfeiting and grey imports.  I will give a basic description of some features, highlighting the advantages and problems with each, and then move on to how systems can now be used to authenticate and track goods through the entire distribution chain.

The first part of my presentation will focus on features currently used on packaging for verification by members of public such as Thermochromic, Photochromic, Coin reactive inks & Optically variable inks.

The second section will focus on features often used by retailers and officials, such as UV Fluorescent Inks, Metameric Inks & Pen reactive Inks.

The Thrird section will deal with covert inks for use only by authorised corporate officials.  For example IR Fluorescent Inks, Sophisticated UV fluorescent responses, Chemical tags & Machine-readable features.